Sometimes it is desirable to distinguish original cartridges provided by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) from third party compatible cartridges, the latter being alternative cartridges compatible to a corresponding OEM printer that is designed to use original OEM cartridges. An OEM printer that uses a third party compatible cartridge may provide a printed product of less or different quality than OEM cartridges. Therefore, an OEM typically wants to avoid association with such third party.
In certain instances, the third party compatible cartridge is a replicate or counterfeit cartridge that has the appearance of an original OEM cartridge. In other instances, original OEM cartridges housing can be refilled, reused or tampered with by third parties after the original contents have been exhausted. In all of the above instances, it is desirable that the third party contents can be readily distinguished from original OEM contents, by an end user or operator.